Should You Sell Your House to Pay Debt During Layoffs?

The pricey leak you don’t see: selling costs vs. debt costs The pricey leak you don’t see during layoffs isn’t always the 22% credit card in your face. Sometimes it’s the decision to sell the house to “wipe the slate clean,” only to light tens of thousands on fire in transaction costs. I’ve watched more than a few smart people do this under stress. It feels safe. It isn’t always smart. Here’s what you’ll get out of this section: a clean tally of what selling really costs, a quick way to compare that to the actual carrying cost of your…

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Refinance or Sell During Rate Cuts? What Pros Recommend

What pros wish you knew about refi vs sell in a rate-cut cycle If you’re staring at your mortgage statement in Q4 2025 and thinking, “rates are easing… should I refinance or just sell and reset?”, you’re not alone. The headline rate is loud, but the decision is mostly about time-in-home and your next move, not the latest Fed soundbite. Yes, mortgage rates have pulled back from the 2023-2024 highs, the 30‑year fixed peaked around 7.79% in October 2023 per Freddie Mac, and this fall we’re generally in the mid‑6s for well-qualified borrowers. But the catch is simple: if you…

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Retirement Planning When Rent Consumes Most Income

When rent eats 40%+, the retirement math changes. If your monthly payment feels like a second job, you’re not imagining it. The data is brutal: in 2022, 22.4 million renter households were cost-burdened, spending 30%+ of income on housing, the highest on record, per Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. That’s the backdrop you’re planning in. Not a vibe, a fact. Quick reality check for 2025. Rent growth is cooler than the 2021-2022 spike (thank goodness), with more supply finally hitting in a lot of Sun Belt markets and concessions popping up in new builds. But shelter costs in the…

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Use Home Equity to Pay Debt Before Retirement: Smart Moves

How pros think about home equity (and why they sleep better) Here’s what seasoned finance folks do differently with home equity: they treat it like a tool, not an ATM. The point isn’t “how do I slash my monthly payment right now,” it’s “how do I reduce lifetime risk, keep cash flow resilient, and avoid tax booby traps”, especially in the last 5-10 years before retirement, when one sloppy refinance can haunt your Social Security and RMD timing. Sounds a bit intense? It is. But it’s also how you sleep better. Quick reality check on rates and the backdrop: mortgage…

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Will Rising Inflation Delay Fed Rate Cuts? Not From One CPI

No, one hot CPI print doesn’t handcuff the Fed No, one hot CPI print doesn’t handcuff the Fed. It grabs headlines, sure, and it definitely rattles the front end of the curve for a few sessions. But the FOMC doesn’t rewrite its rate-cut path off a single month’s data. That’s not how policy worked when I was cutting my teeth on a rates desk, and it’s not how it works in Q4 2025. One data point is a signal; a trend is policy. There’s a difference. And, small confession, I’m oversimplifying already because even “trend” isn’t just inflation. It’s inflation,…

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How 3% Inflation Impacts Retirement Withdrawal Rates

No, the 4% rule isn’t autopilot, especially with steady 3% inflation The 4% rule has great PR. Bill Bengen’s 1994 paper showed that a retiree starting at 4%, then adjusting that dollar amount for inflation each year, survived every 30-year stretch in the historical U.S. data he used. Useful? Absolutely. Guaranteed? Not even close. It was built on specific U.S. stock/bond returns and inflation paths. And the last few years reminded us that inflation isn’t a background character; it’s the script editor. Quick reality check on the backdrop we’re living in right now. The CPI surge after the pandemic peaked…

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Debt Payoff vs Mortgage After Fed Rate Cut: What Wins?

From juggling bills to an actual plan you can live with Picture your month before you set priorities right now, in a rate-cut year: a couple of high-APR cards you “chip away at,” a random extra $200 tossed at the mortgage when you feel guilty, and a pile of cash sitting in a checking account earning, what, 0.01%? Meanwhile your adjustable-rate stuff moves the goalposts on you. I’ve seen this movie a hundred times on client balance sheets and, yes, in my own house years ago when I thought “rounding up” my mortgage payment was strategy. It wasn’t. Now picture…

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Refinance or Sell to Pay Debt? Pros’ Rules You Need

What pros wish everyone knew before using a house to kill debt Here’s the uncomfortable truth up front: when you use your house to kill debt, you didn’t make it disappear, you moved it, usually onto a 15-30 year clock. I’ve watched too many people feel smart swapping a 22% card into a vanilla mortgage… and then forget to re-amortize or prepay. Thirty years later, that “win” wasn’t cheap. It’s fixable, but only if you go in with a clear rule and a calculator, not just a lower-payment screenshot. Rule #1: Only refinance or tap equity if your total interest…

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Will Fed Rate Cuts Ease Your Rent Burden? Budget Tips

From rent panic to plan: what rate cuts could mean for your budget From rent panic to plan isn’t a slogan, it’s a shift you can feel in your shoulders. I’ve watched too many people (and yes, I’ve done it myself) renew a lease in a rush (reactive, stressed, missing small but real concessions ) only to realize later they didn’t budget for movers, deposits, or that second month of overlapping rent. That’s the “before.” The “after” happens when you use rate-cut headlines and actual market data as a clock, so you time your renewal, build a targeted cash cushion,…

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